One of the cheezy things I love about almost every Star Trek film is the scene where they inevitably have to go to Warp 9 or 10, which in that century, I guess, was equivalent to red-lining your Porsche. I get giddy when the crew does that uncomfortable exchange of looks when the captain orders it, their Star Fleet training prohibiting any errant "oh shit" muttering, but the looks conveying exactly that. Then there's the high whine of the engines, which totally makes no sense since they're supposedly located somewhere in engineering which one would assume is somewhere down on the lower decks. And why would a faster than light drive make a lot of noise anyway? Then there's the thumping and bumping and c-c-c-c-captain she can't take much more! What is causing all that turbulence? Are they blasting through flocks of space geese? In spite of all these obvious tell-tales, I get a kick out of the Enterprise doing that "oh no, warp 9, we can't take warp 9 much longer" scene.
I am the Enterprise crashing after an extended period of Warp 9.
I'm lying in a hotel bed. My throat feels thick and sore. My head feels full of radioactive fallout. It would be advisable for me to get up. I can't quite do it. I start to review the events of the recent weeks, especially last night.
I don't talk about my job here, but let's just say I've been putting in some long hours. Like enough that two of me ought to be doing the work. I'm not a workaholic. I'm just doing what needs to be done and I won't let myself fail.
I finished the previous week clocking in at just over 70 hours and had plans for this week that involved clearing some backlog, but I got called up to DC at the last minute. There is a lucky part to this trip, though. Phillip is in DC too! He has started his new job this week (a topic for a separate entry) so my last minute scheduling change was less annoying than it could have been.
I had to plan some complex logistics to get all the places I needed to be. BWI to meet Kahunas at a restaurant. Check. Restaurant to Phillip's hotel. Check. Phillip's hotel back to Maryland offices. Check. Maryland offices to BWI. Four sets of Google maps, one overnight bag, laptop, Blackberry, keep a cool head and this will be on like Wrath of Kahn.
The first leg executed with no problem at all. The plane was on time, the car was ready, the map directions were perfect and I was finshed with dinner by 9:00. Had one more drink at the bar, to be social, then took off to find my husband. Navigation to the hotel also went smoothly. Getting out of the car and reaching for my Blackberry like a gunslinger, I had that embarrassing moment a lot of men must have felt in the old west when they realized they'd miscounted the shots and were left facing an enemy with a dry *click*. No juice. My phone had died somewhere in transit. I was puzzled by that, knowing I'd charged it today, but I've come to distrust technology. Phillip says it's because I don't take proper care of my devices, but I think if you have to think about it that much, it isn't working right.
The plan was that I'd call him when I arrived and he'd come to the lobby to get me. I went into the hotel figuring there would be a courtesy phone somewhere. There wasn't, but I found a wall of pay phones. I dialed his cell phone and got sent straight to voice mail. Hmm...Maybe he is calling me at this moment. I waited a few minutes and tried again. Voice mail. Getting annoyed now. Tried a third time and got the same result. The first two messages I left were chirpy, this one was straying into plaintive. If I had to do a fourth it would probably come through chewed gravel. I spent a few minutes walking and thinking, long enough for someone at the front desk to notice my loitering and ask if there was something, perhaps a service I was seeking? I hadn't gone this route initially because I know that no one at a hotel is going to give you someone else's room number, but it hadn't occurred to me to ask that they just call the room for me. The desk attendant obliged, but a woman's voice answered the phone. If this were another type of story, that would be the "uh oh" moment. This isn't that kind of story. I apologized for the wrong number and handed the phone back. The desk attendant squinted at her flat screen and said "Oh, Phillip checked out." I wasn't annoyed enough yet to get formal with this chick so I just said "No way!" She said "Way. Is there anything else I can do for you?" but not in a way that indicated she actually wanted to do anything to help. She meant I was dismissed. To say that I was now annoyed would be like saying that the Hindenburg got a bit warm for the passengers. I didn't give her the piece of my mind just yet, you know, the one that can still muster the energy to give a shit when somebody is rude to me, because it would be so much more delicious when I gave it to her with my husband NOT CHECKED OUT OF THE HOTEL standing in front of her. I decided I would then use the words incompetent, followed by bitch and then maybe even moron. Then I wondered why I considered moron to be a deeper barb than bitch, but realized I was getting off track and stalked out to my car.
I decided that something about this crap hotel's pay phone was preventing me from getting through to Phillip and I'd just have to get some charge into my phone to make this work. I opened the trunk of the rental car, opened my laptop in the compartment and plugged the phone in. Charge came up right away so I dialed in. Same fucking result! I was seriously starting to wonder at this point if Phillip had gotten himself mixed up in some kind of NSA shit and all this business about a new job in Washington was a spy cover and he was in a dank basement somewhere with a hood over his head and electrodes attached to his balls. Or maybe he'd just fallen asleep in which case he's going to end up with electrodes attached to his balls. Just then my phone started ringing, display showing the name of the guy who better have a good explanation for this.
"I have been calling you for half an hour!"
"I totally forgot that I had set up both our Blackberrys to automatically shut off at 11:00 every night."
"Aaaaaarrrghghggh!!!!! Come down to the lobby! We have to call someone a moron and then I have to kill you."
I lurk around the lobby, careful to stay out of sight of the Soon To Be Owned Desk Attendant because I want it to be a total surprise when I present her with Phillip the NOT CHECKED OUT Baron of Bavaria, Duke of Staying in this Hotel, Overlord of Expecting Compensation for the Trouble.
"Where are you?"
"I'm standing by the elevator."
"I'm looking right at the elevators."
"Maybe there are other elevators."
"Are you at the elevators near the piano?"
"There's no piano here. I'm at the elevators in the center of the lobby."
"Center of the lobby? That sounds like the hotel I stayed at last night."
"........."
"Princess?"
"........"
"Uh...baby?"
"What. Do. You. Mean. Stayed. At. Last.
Night!!!"
"I told you I was in Centerville the first night and McLean the second night."
I think a lot of people would have launched into a no you didn't, yes I did verbal bitch slapping fest at that point. I just sighed from the roots of my beleagured soul and stalked back to the car.
And then I couldn't find my keys.
I made a thorough search of my bag and clothes and the inside of the car, which I'd mercifully left unlocked from my last visit to turn on the computer and it suddenly became very clear what I'd done. In my haste to get my phone working and my submission to the rage that washed all reason from my synaptic pathways, I'd carelessly dropped my keys onto the floor of the trunk while working the laptop and closed the lid on them.
I closed my eyes and did a mental excercise to enforce calm that basically involves picturing myself lying on the ground screaming in raw, useless rage and despair, like Cameron Diaz did at the end of Very Bad Things. It forces me to realize that lying on the ground screaming is not going to help matters so I better hold it together. It usually works for a few seconds and then I start shattering windows with my sonic hate screams.
I decided my choices were sleeping in the car or finding a locksmith, so I called Phillip to let him know not to wait up. He was genuinely despondent about what I was going through, but still retained enough mental fortitude, thank god, to think through the problem.
"Can't you pop the trunk from the inside?"
"No. I've looked everywhere. This stupid car has satellite radio, but no trunk pop."
"What kind of car is it?"
"Chevy something something."
"That's no help."
"A crowbar would help."
"Hey, can't you pull the seat down to get in the trunk?"
Fucking A!
Yes, I could and fucking did and that's where my stupid keys had dropped from my idiot hand due to my overpowering rage brought on by that bitch moron desk attendant.
Now. Where is Phillip's actual hotel? I don't have any Google maps to get me there and I don't know this city and he can't tell me where it is either. All we know for sure is that it should be about a fifteen minute drive from where I am now and it's in a pretty major hub because it's downtown-ish in a big shopping district.
All told the fifteen minute commute took about an hour. I met an absolutely adorable man of some hispanic decent who gave me an accurate enough drawing to get 90% of the way there. He was closing the convenience store, but still let me in. While I was talking to him another guy came to the door and, seeing me inside, rattled the door to insist he be let in too and was a total dick to my new friend, who responded with nothing but professionalism and humility. Later I had time to consider that jobs like his can be soul crushing, but he retains enough character to be kind to strangers and let insults roll away. I made a mental note to think more on that later. Is it strength or weakness to let the bully have his way? I don't think I know the answer to that question yet.
I made it to the hotel, the right hotel this time! It was probably going to be a bad scene. It was after midnight in the midst of a grueling time for both of us: He's starting something new that is terrifying to him and I have to make a presentation tomorrow that got dropped in my lap that I've had no time to prepare for. I haven't had an actual night's sleep in over a month and he's been shouldering all the burdens of our home renovation. This coincidental location was supposed to be a perk. Sexy times in Washington on the company dime! Boo-yah! I didn't foresee any boo-yah at this point. And he had already said he regretted this whole thing.
Then I saw Phillip practically running down the stairs of the hotel. He was still in his new pinstriped pants and white shirt and he was doing this weird pinwheeling of his arms. He looked like the personification of joy. Really mentally challenged joy. I felt unblemished, pure mirth snort through my nose and then almost double me over, but his arms prevented me from capsizing.
"I was so worried about you". *kiss* *kiss* *kiss*
I didn't have much to contribute as I was caught up in simultaneously appreciating how this man can be unbelievably goofy, romantic and structured all at the same time and realizing, again, how much I love the way he smells.
Boo-yah.
